Some of America’s most splendid resorts have literally put their small, and often remote, towns on the map. Here, Mary Moore Mason investigates three: Kohler, Wisconsin’s The American Club; White Sulphur Springs, West Virginia’s’ Greenbrier; and Hot Springs, Virginia’s Omni Homestead.
THE AMERICAN CLUB – A RESORT LAUNCHED BY A BATHTUB
Would you ever have heard of Kohler, Wisconsin, if a 29-year-old farmer hadn’t transformed a metal cattle-trough into a porcelain bathtub or his grandson changed a dormitory for immigrant factory workers into the posh American Club resort? Probably not.
For Kohler, population 2,000, and The American Club are solely the creation of the Austrian immigrant family of Kohlers, which made its name manufacturing bathroom and kitchen appliances in what was once 21 acres of farmland north of Milwaukee.
It all began 142 years ago when John Michael Kohler found there was a household market for his porcelain bathtub. As demand grew and the resulting factories expanded, his son, Walter J Kohler, built dormitories for their European immigrant workers where they were housed in single rooms, fed three meals a day and provided with a laundry, pub, bowling alley and other amenities – all for only $27.50 a month. After being given English language and citizenship lessons, most became American citizens, acquiring families who joined them in the village’s discounted housing, which became part of one of America’s first planned communities.
When the dormitories were no longer needed, the Kohlers had another inspiration – why not transform them into a hotel? In 1918, The American Club opened its doors and in 1978 it was added to the prestigious National Register of Historic Places. Closing its doors for three years of renovation, it reopened in 1981, transformed into a splendid, all-purpose resort. Overseen during this period and still today by Herbert V Kohler, Jr, it was given AAA five-star status in 1989.
Travelling from Milwaukee to check it out, we approached, via a circular drive, what at first appeared to be a handsome, brick manor house. Met by a uniformed doorman, we were guided into a wood-panelled hall that exuded the ambience of an elegant English country club. Ushered past side rooms named after US Presidents Washington and Lincoln, we were led to our respective guest rooms – mine was dedicated to silent-screen star Mary Pickford; my friend’s to Ernest Hemingway. They were among 241 in the main building and Carnegie House annex.
An opulent breakfast buffet awaited us in the huge Wisconsin Room, formerly the dining hall for the Austrian, German, Dutch and Russian factory workers. (Their former laundry had been transformed into the Immigrant Restaurant & Wine Bar; the former bowling alley into the picturesque Horse & Plow pub/restaurant). Tea was taken in the sunny Greenhouse Solarium overlooking a garden, and dinner in the romantically-rustic Whistling Straits Restaurant, which is set beside the resort’s namesake golf course overlooking Lake Michigan. It and the resort’s other three courses have, between them, hosted two PGA championships, with another scheduled for this year, plus a Ryder Cup event due in 2020.
In between, we luxuriated in the resort’s spa, one of only 48 Forbes five-star spas worldwide, including one in St Andrews, Scotland, where the Kohler Company now owns and operates The Old Course Hotel, Golf Resort & Spa, including The Dukes Golf Course.
Although there was no time to wander through the village, explore parts of the resort’s 800 acres of wilderness preserve, or to visit the Waelderhaus, a reconstruction of the Kohler family’s ancestral Austrian home, we briefly toured the Kohler Design Center, a combined family museum and showroom that encompasses everything from a re-creation of that pioneering first bathtub to the luxurious bath and kitchen fixtures manufactured by the Kohler empire today. A true success story of an immigrant family making its fortune – and giving something back – to its adopted new home.
THE GREENBRIER – A PRESIDENTIAL FAVOURITE
West Virginia’s palatial Greenbrier resort had its origins in the area’s thermal springs,
indicated by its Old
Springhouse
Set in what was once referred to as ‘the village in the wilderness’, the 10,000-acre Greenbrier was founded in 1778, just two years after America declared independence from Britain. The appeal of the site, set in a lovely valley close to the West Virginia/Virginia state line, was both its mineral springs and its altitude high above the steamy summers of the Atlantic coastal cities. Originally just a collection of cottages, it had already attracted five American presidents by the time of the American Civil War; its latest presidential count is 26. Other VIP guests have included President John F Kennedy’s parents, Rose and Joe, who spent their honeymoon there, and the luxury-loving Duke and Duchess of Windsor, who made repeated visits.
Now fronted by a majestic, white-columned building, it boasts 710 guest rooms, guest cottages, numerous restaurants, afternoon teas accompanied by concerts, a casino offering everything from roulette to black jack, nightly film showings, a 42-treatment room spa and a splendid swimming pool – and that’s just inside.
Outside, there’s a stunning infinity pool and a wide range of activities that include horseback, carriage and sleigh rides, tennis, white-water rafting and golf on five championship courses, which have been played by the likes of Sam Snead, Jack Nicklaus and Tiger Woods.
We headed immediately for the indoor swimming pool, palatial enough to stage a whole Hollywood-style water ballet perhaps headed by movie mermaid Esther Williams. Then a massage in the spa, followed by tea set to music, a browse through the tempting shops, and a visit to the resort’s most unusual attraction – the underground Emergency Relocation Center, built during the Gold War to house the US President and his top government officials in case of a nuclear attack.
In fact, ‘America’s Resort’, as the Greenbrier sometimes refers to itself, is full of fascinating history. Although closed during the 19th-century American Civil War, it was occupied by both the Union and Confederate armies, and, in World War II, it was not only a hospital treating about 24,140 US servicemen but also the luxurious internment centre for German, Japanese and Italian diplomats and their families. Rumour has it that some of their descendants now return for visits.
THE OMNI HOMESTEAD – THE GRANDE DAME OF THE MOUNTAINS
Virginia’s Omni Homestead resort was founded by a friend of America’s first president, George Washington
Established even earlier than the Greenbrier – in 1766 – by a homesteader buddy of the-then young George Washington, the Omni Homestead has put tiny but picturesque Hot Springs firmly on the American South’s posh resort circuit. Tucked away on 3,000 acres deep in western Virginia’s remote Allegheny Mountains, its signature structure is a brick tower, built during a renovation in 1929. However, the resort was well-known by generations of families as well as by the rich and famous long before that.
Early US Presidents Thomas Jefferson and James Madison went there to bathe in the thermal waters of nearby Warm Springs, where you can still soak in the Jefferson Pools’ wooden bathhouse, built in 1761 and the oldest in the USA. Following the American Civil War, Confederate General Robert E Lee brought his semi-invalid wife to the adjacent women-only bathhouse – the special chair device she was lowered into remains there today. Golf was introduced in 1892 – the first tee of the Old Course, still in use today, is the oldest first tee in continuous use in America. Thomas Edison (a regular guest) supplied the resort’s first electric power plant; mega-wealthy banker J Pierpont Morgan was a benefactor; Mr and Mr and Mrs Cornelius Vanderbilt III spent their honeymoon there; and John D Rockefeller came accompanied by his favourite carriage so he could ride in style along the mountain trails. That’s not to forget the ubiquitous Duke and Duchess of Windsor, who stayed for a month and left without paying the bill (luckily, a fellow guest arranged to pick up the tab).
However, as soon as we dropped our car at the porte cochère and ascended the steps to the wide verandah, we discovered you don’t have to be a VIP to be welcome there. Strolling through the Grand Hall inhabited by clusters of chatting friends and families, we were directed to the President’s Lounge to enjoy mint juleps, surrounded by the portraits of the 22 US presidents who have visited the resort. Then it was off for a stroll along the Cascades Gorge Trail, known for its 13 waterfalls and nearby namesake championship golf course. It was there that legendary golfer ‘Slamin’ Sammy Snead, who was born in Hot Springs, perfected his game. After a soak and a massage in the spa, it was off to the elegant Dining Room for a delicious, southern-style meal and an impromptu local history lesson from our amusing old-timey waiter.
Adjourning to rocking chairs on the front verandah, with after-dinner drinks in hand, we were told further stories of the Homestead by a fellow guest who had been holidaying there for decades. It seems he became friendly on this same verandah with an elderly Japanese brother and sister who had been interred, along with their diplomat father and mother, at the Homestead during World War II. They’d enjoyed their stay so much they had returned for a holiday. We were not surprised.
